The Yukon has acquired six ventilators from the Public Health Agency of Canada, increasing the territory’s capacity to provide acute care for COVID-19.

“At this time, no one in Yukon has needed a ventilator; however, we have been working hard to ensure that if we see an increased need for acute care, we are able to respond to it to keep Yukoners safe and healthy,” Pauline Frost, the minister of Health, told a media briefing Monday afternoon.

The six additional ventilators, which arrived in the territory on April 17, bring the territory’s total number to 15. They will be distributed between Whitehorse General Hospital and Emergency Medical Services.

The ventilators will be returned to the Public Health Agency of Canada’s emergency response services after the pandemic subsides.

Whitehorse General Hospital has 30 nurses trained to operate a ventilator, as well as Emergency Medical Services’ 28 critical care paramedics.

Five of the six new ventilators have been assigned to Whitehorse General.

This is because it has the only intensive care unit in the territory that can handle serious hospitalizations due to COVID-19, a government official explained.

The sixth ventilator has been assigned to Emergency Medical Services.

“With expanded ventilator capacity and a dedicated team of healthcare professionals, Yukon is well-prepared in the event that we see a surge of patients in serious condition,” Frost said.

Ventilators are used to treat COVID-19 patients who are severely ill and suffering from respiratory failure by pushing oxygen into the lungs.

A world-wide shortage of the machines saw harrowing accounts early in the pandemic of doctors forced to make life-or-death decisions about who needed the machines most.

On April 7, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the federal government is working with several Canadian companies to produce 30,000 ventilators.

Earlier this month, the Public Health Agency of Canada said it was in possession of 5,000 of the machines.